DOES ANYONE REMEMBER GAMINGW? (REMEMBERING GAMINGW)

Posts

I can relate a bit to what Kaempfer is saying. There were two distinct crowds that loved to shit on people (one being a non-RM crowd and the other being a sort of clique within the RMN crowd which included the names Kaempfer dropped). I mean, it really was a terrific site, but the powers that be just let people run amok too much and it resulted in a lot of people being shit on by other members all the time. Sure a lot of us were immature teenagers at the time, but a lot of members were also in their twenties and partaking in it. Bad behaviour just wasn't frowned upon enough, and nobody rarely ever punished the very influential members for being dicks to people.

I remember when I was modding Game & Demo and the Poll Forum, I tried to curb that sort of behaviour, but it was honestly just too difficult - especially being a target of those groups myself that Kaempfer mentioned. I got shit on plenty, sometimes even away from GW by these people, just because I've always liked to dabble with fan games. A terrible reason, but it happened. I was a prominent member on GW, but never one of the "hip" ones that had actual sway on the forums. Even though I was a moderator for a time, the more popular members who were simple members had insane sway with how things were run, way more than me even. The influential few who turned GW away from RPG Maker were the ones who decided how Game & Demo would be run rather than Esh and I, and we were moderating the freaking thing. We were just janitors, basically. I had A LOT more influence in the Poll Forum, but I wish that it had been the other way around and I could have helped dictate, and save, the Game & Demo forum from ultimately being considered a cess pool. I know I tried to save it in the staff forum and probably on IRC, but it never amounted to much.

But what Kaempfer mentioned, and why he harbours some ill feelings towards GW, are exceptionally valid points. People were just rampantly picked on, and the only ones who could actually stop it were the administrators. This is why RMN has always been a far superior site. That sort of juvenile nonsense is a major no-no here. It helps that we're all older now and actually treat other people with some degree of decency, but you still get the one idiot or two who never grew up and still likes to pick on people and act all snooty (see: names Kaempfer mentioned, the shmup crew or whatever they were called, but thankfully they're inactive/mostly gone from RMN in recent years).

It sucks that the "bad" side of GW is so easy to bring up, because a lot of the great games and AMAZING people who are on RMN (and, in some cases, running it now) came from GW. There was plenty of good there, it's just kind of unfortunate that the bad side was so much more vocal and "in your face" most of the time.

Apologies for any typos and/or incoherent sentences. It's Friday and I'm ringing in the weekend with booze.
This is good too UPRC, but please refrain from naming names. I mostly want descriptions of what it was like.

Obviously, Kaempfer is still upset by what happened in the past - and he has every right be, he's allowed to be.

Like, I didn't expect Kaempfer's respond to be filled with so much anger...But, this is what it is, and we need to respect that.

But, I want to try to keep this civil and not ignite old arguments. GamingW's past is always going to be hard to talk about.

EDIT: But yeah, I think I have everything I need now. Everyone, thank you very much for contributing to this thread.

If you guys have any more fond memories of Gamingw, please post them. It was an interesting sort of revelation to learn that GamingW originally started out as an rpgmaker site and see Erave talk about how DarkPriest pushed rpgmaker in new and interesting ways.
Oh, believe me, that crowd's reputation is definitely no secret. I recall them even causing a bit of trouble on RMN at one point a few years ago, but I barely paid any attention to that. I just recall a few bans happening and them getting all cranky before declaring that they were done here. It's in the past though, and they've buggered off, so oh well. I don't think anyone's arguing either, nor do I think there are any potential arguments bubbling in this topic. I think everyone has agreed that GW had some pretty shitty people on it for a while, and we all know who they were. There's plenty of them that I won't bother to name, but anyone who came from GW could probably still remember who they were. You are right though, they're not really worth naming - not after so many years have passed.

Erave posting the video of one of the chain games up above filled me with quite a few memories. I LOVED how disorganized they were, especially the one I took part in. It was so much fun grabbing the game when your part came up and struggling to make ANY sense of the most recent plot developments that the last person inserted into the game. I forget which one it was that I worked on, Chain Game 2 or 3 (I think 2?), but I'd love to get my hands on it again just for the sake of nostalgia.

But yeah, there's plenty of good that could be brought up about GW. Mostly members who vanished or never migrated to RMN. Some notable examples of people who I would honestly say that I miss even to this day just because they were really swell people are a short eternity, Bart, Belross, Drule, Esh, the Finn twins (DS and rami), Mateui (he "kind of" came here, but not really), RPGoddess, Rowain, Serenity, Sicksinz... the list goes on and on. GW had its fair share of people who loved to stir the pot and upset people, but there were at least several awesome people for every one shit disturber.

Someone also mentioned GW Radio. I LOVED GW Radio. There are a lot of other ways to play music for people in this day and age, but streaming music for people via WinAmp was really innovative and exciting back then. I remember that we had our our DJ schedule complete with when each person would be on air, what genres they'd play, etc. I tried to get something similar going with a Plug.dj room for RMN, but it failed to stay popular for more than two or three days. Those two or three days were LOTS of fun though. From Frogge and Kloe playing all sorts of weird stuff I never heard of to Liberty staying up and playing music for over 24 hours and a few hours where all of us started playing our favourite TV themes for each other, it was great.

... that got off-track. That wasn't even about GW at all, lol.
GW before circa 2004/2005 was actually a very friendly and great place to learn. Then it started changing...if you came to it around that era I could see why you'd hate the place so much.

Oh and UPRC, I have all the Chain Games (1-4) if you want a copy.
Sure, hit me up! I think it was 2 that I worked on.
TFT
WHOA wow wow. two tails? that is a sexy idea...
445
Did you know TFT once put my actual, real-life face in a game to make fun of me? Yeah, that was great. "It was just a joke!" cries Magi to this day, but fuck that. It was mean-spirited and unnecessary.

That was Strangeluv btw. Going through this topic today just shows 90% of what's been posted isn't even remotely accurate.




Memory is a hazy thing. 90% of all memories are inaccurate.
Dudesoft
always a dudesoft, never a soft dude.
6309
author=UPRC
I think Gaming World's demise sort of started when certain people who became prominent in the community, who actively disliked RPG Maker, had started pushing to make the site focus less on it. Ideally, not even at all. It was sort of strange since that's what the site had originally been built around, and I remember a lot of people (myself included) feeling alienated that RPG Maker users were being pushed aside/away. I recall, at one point, it was pretty much deemed okay for the members who didn't like RPG Maker to troll game topics in Game & Demo. Take fan games for example (a type of game that's always been close to my heart), I remember taking a bit of abuse and shit from other GW users because of what I would create (fan games). The whole atmosphere on the site was just becoming really awful and it's the reason why I left and joined RMN, even before it became SaltW.

I always felt like, in the last few years as Gaming World, the highly influential members appeared to want to do everything in their power to make GW into something it wasn't, and I think that's ultimately what led to the site just turning into... whatever the hell it is now. It was just so mismanaged towards the end that it was painful to watch.

RMN, while never as active as GW was in its peak, is still a superior site. The best part about RMN? Nothing is really flat out "shunned", more or less anything is encouraged because, here, creativity is key. The fact that we're all just doing what we love is what's important on RMN, and I'm glad that a lot of former GW members who seem to promote that same message are here as well.

Literally everything here. Yes.
author=TFT
That was Strangeluv btw. Going through this topic today just shows 90% of what's been posted isn't even remotely accurate.


You thinking that it matters more the accuracy of specific memory and less the accuracy of accumulated feeling is evidence to suggest that you have a dramatic misunderstanding of what the problems people had with GW were.

I apologize for incorrectly ascribing blame. I guess you were frenetically high-fiving him too much for me to distinguish from the blur of troll which one you two it was.
Magi
Resident Terrapin
1028
author=Kaempfer
"It was just a joke!" cries Magi to this day, but fuck that. It was mean-spirited and unnecessary.



User was warned for this post
UPRC: Sent you the Chain Games.

Here's a handy link I found with lots of old classic rm2k games:
http://www.queenscourt.org/othergames.php
@Erave:
Could you send me the Chain Games, too? I want... I want to remember...
author=Kaempfer
@Erave:
Could you send me the Chain Games, too? I want... I want to remember...

https://www.mediafire.com/?2wbq64zxq0tc7 (chain games 1-4) and a few others

I'm currently rehauling the Rare/Obscure thread so keep your eyes peeled for that - But yeah, if you ever see him, Thank SegNin,

In fact, Thank SegNin, Tau, Darken, TheChosenOne, iisheron and AznChipMunk they all did a lot of work, in making sure these games are still around.

(...It's why I've been doing these "Does Anyone Remember?" threads, so I can try and get more info on what each community was like.)
I browsed GamingW since I first started using RPG Maker 2000 in the year 2002. I downloaded many of my first games from there including Legion Saga II (the description of which mentioned it's custom naming system) and the first few episodes of The Way. I was around the age of 9 and 10 at this time.

I remember writing an absolutely terrible, critical review for the game Robocks during this period. I actually found it a few years back on the Internet Wayback Machine. It's extremely embarrassing, but I can find it again for anyone who may be interested.

I didn't post on the forums much at all until the year 2007. Before then, I was a regular on the RPG Maker Database forums. I started posting occasionally on GamingW after RMDatabase went under. I posted two demos of my game Hellucination there - one in 2007 and one in 2008, I believe.

A lot of people here are mentioning that there was a lot of bullying going on, but I received a lot of support for the project despite it being buggy and poorly tested. Someone mentioned that I should assign weapon hotkeys to the number pad. Within a few minutes of that post being made, I went to work and released a patch that included this feature within the next day. The user who made the suggestion was impressed.

I remember the screenshot thread being very impressive. I wonder what happened to most of those games? Many of them, unfortunately, never saw the light of day. Presumably, a lot of users went missing during the migration to rpgmaker.net.

I went by the same username as I do here on GamingW. I didn't post as often as I did on RPG Maker Database (where I went by the username M2K), so I doubt anybody remembers me being an active part of the community. That's because I wasn't. I did browse the forums all the time, though. I definitely remember the hostility that occurred being the Game & Demo section and the "general discussion" forum (I think it was called Post-9/11 World?)

I'm still waiting to play Monopolo.
author=dethmetal
I browsed GamingW since I first started using RPG Maker 2000 in the year 2002. I downloaded many of my first games from there including Legion Saga II (the description of which mentioned it's custom naming system) and the first few episodes of The Way. I was around the age of 9 and 10 at this time.

I remember writing an absolutely terrible, critical review for the game Robocks during this period. I actually found it a few years back on the Internet Wayback Machine. It's extremely embarrassing, but I can find it again for anyone who may be interested.

I didn't post on the forums much at all until the year 2007. Before then, I was a regular on the RPG Maker Database forums. I started posting occasionally on GamingW after RMDatabase went under. I posted two demos of my game Hellucination there - one in 2007 and one in 2008, I believe.

A lot of people here are mentioning that there was a lot of bullying going on, but I received a lot of support for the project despite it being buggy and poorly tested. Someone mentioned that I should assign weapon hotkeys to the number pad. Within a few minutes of that post being made, I went to work and released a patch that included this feature within the next day. The user who made the suggestion was impressed.

I remember the screenshot thread being very impressive. I wonder what happened to most of those games? Many of them, unfortunately, never saw the light of day. Presumably, a lot of users went missing during the migration to rpgmaker.net.

I went by the same username as I do here on GamingW. I didn't post as often as I did on RPG Maker Database (where I went by the username M2K), so I doubt anybody remembers me being an active part of the community. That's because I wasn't. I did browse the forums all the time, though. I definitely remember the hostility that occurred being the Game & Demo section and the "general discussion" forum (I think it was called Post-9/11 World?)

I'm still waiting to play Monopolo.

S4D released Monopolo, and then took it down. ...I wonder if he ever put it back up.

The long and short of it is - I played it and even wrote a review.
author=kentona
S4D released Monopolo, and then took it down. ...I wonder if he ever put it back up.

Nope, not since then.

One of these days it will come back…one of these days
author=Addit
author=kentona
S4D released Monopolo, and then took it down. ...I wonder if he ever put it back up.
Nope, not since then.

One of these days it will come back…one of these days


Why did you take it down? Just curious.
Starscream
Conquest is made from the ashes of one's enemies.
6110
The GamingW administration once threatened RMN with legal action because the splash screen on the RMN landing page (pre-launch) featured a cartoon lego man having a drug overdose. Bart considered it a legitimate death threat.

We responded with several more comic strips with the lego man in dark, gritty adult situations.

RPG Maker politics were the worst.
OzzyTheOne
Future Ruler of Gam Mak
4676
I don't know why, but I always find the feuds between websites funny if not downright ridiculous. How resentful can people be, holy shit.
Ciel
an aristocrat of rpgmaker culture
367
author=LordBlueRouge
Like, Darken mentioned, 2005 was arguably the golden era of GamingW, right? - but it doesn't explain what made Gamingw begin to loath rpgmaker by 2007.

Like, was there a change in administration? Did someone leave Gamingworld.net and give the reins to site to someone else?(...was it the Iron Gaia Incident?)

GW was started by a cool dude named Bart, who gradually drifted away from running the site, and after the main page went down from no code maintenance the admin duty started being passed around.

GW as a whole never hated RM, nor even a significant portion of it - it was like 3 guys who somehow ended up with admin powers and started to shit all over it because barkley being played on gamespot made them think they could run the next tigsource. they killed a great thing for the other 99% of users who didn't share their pathetic and desperate need for coolkid indie validation . now they have a smoking digital crater to call their own i guess. gg

__

i'm gonna talk about GW seriously for a bit here

GW's sense of humor didn't really appear 'toxic' from my side of it. it was basically like ribbing someone who is behaving in a slightly ridiculous fashion, not in order to maliciously drive a knife into them and make them leave, but to have a laugh about it and point it out to them. people with the self-awareness to understand this tended to fit in and have a good time, while others took disproportionate offense, usually over ultimately pretty trivial things, and harbored resentment

an example brought up in this topic was strangeluv creating rpgmaker screenshots featuring kaempher. kaempher had posted a thread somewhere on the forums concerning a girl problem, i may be misremembering and correct me if i am, but i believe it was basically asking for advice on whether he should have a threesome with this girl and another guy. from his perspective, and at his age at the time, i suppose this was a very serious issue and he was earnestly coming to this community for help

i would never belittle someone's feelings of kinship to any online community - they can feel like the only place with genuinely kindred spirits because the available pool of human interaction draws from all over the world, and targets specific interests/mentalities - it is very understandable that someone would feel a comfort with the people at such a community that they wouldn't feel anywhere else, so asking for very personal advice there is only natural

that said, there is an inherent humor to the notion of someone asking for this kind of sex advice on a site primarily dedicated to japanese tile rips. not that it is wrong to do so in any way, as i explained. the juxtaposition is just pretty funny, if you think about it

so i imagine strangeluv's line of thinking was to illustrate the humor of that juxtaposition by putting the text of kaempher's thread starkly into the overarching context we all inhabited as members of the site - rpgmaker. he used publicly available photos kaempher himself had posted in gw's photo thread as facesets, further establishing the rpgmaker framework surrounding the 'lurid' subject matter, presumably increasingly the humor of the juxtaposition

sure, this was not the nicest thing strangeluv could possibly have done, (and kaempher received legitimate advice from other users) but i wouldn't call it even remotely malicious or mean-spirited either. as i saw it, the spirit of humor on GW was more of an invitation saying 'come and laugh at this situation with us, even if it involves yourself' - not 'get the f out loser' etc

less socially developed persons might have a difficult time distinguishing between the two, and i don't mean that as an insult. i myself never had any kind of older brothers or other presence who accustomed me to the habitual social hazing/ribbing of many environments, so it was not until later in elementary school that i developed the self-awareness to understand where this kind of behavior was coming from (e.g. yes it is stupid that i am tucking my shirt into my pants, yes i probably talk about final fantasy 3 too much but i'm gonna do that the rest of my life haha u cant stop me losers)

i sympathize with those for whom gw's environment felt like actual bullying, and regret that they were never able to take the intended lesson from it - maybe that lesson was not always delivered effectively. maybe some of the recipients were very very young at the time and understandably unable to grasp this kind of social dynamic

i myself wouldn't have done what strangeluv did, but i don't disavow it either. conceptually, even today it's a pretty funny idea and i'd hope that kaempher himself would, on reflection, agree. but i can't presume to assert what other individuals should or shouldn't think. not saying the line wasn't crossed now and then, and if it was, it was probably strangeluv who would have crossed it

there were others who experienced similar things on GW and, even if not immediately, came to understand the spirit of it, and had a good time afterwards. while i used the word hazing, i think the site's tone actually served the useful function of making sure nobody took themselves too seriously, and engendered a self-awareness among members that was useful for creating better work

the tone at GW, in my eyes functioned as a sort of border check that verified you had this self-awareness prior to entry, and if not, tried to instill it via exposure. it mostly only came across as malicious to people dead set on taking themselves and their 8 rtp crystal dragon idea very very seriously, or those with persecution complexes

there lies the fundamental difference between gw and rmn, and why a certain incompatibility emerged between two sides of its userbase. it seems as though a group of people who could never rise to the task of self-examination ended up taking refuge here, and eventually dominated this site's tone. in my view, that disposition is reflected in the site's content

without a critical environment that engenders reflection on one's thoughts and actions, there is no mitigating factor stemming the single-minded obliviousness fueling production of an endless deluge of yume nikki clones. there is nothing that makes a given individual stop and think for just a moment, that maybe THEIR rtp forest screenshot isn't quite the 5-star experience that they presumed it was inside the vacuum of their own unchecked enthusiasm

there has to be someone there who can say "isn't what you're doing a bit silly?"

to put it as pretentiously as possible: GW's social environment was a filter that tried to make people better versions of themselves by inciting self-reflection - i know that i personally benefited from it and was made to re-examine to some degree what my adolescent self thought was good, or cool, or funny, or high-quality rpgmaking

maybe it didn't always do that in a productive way, and maybe in some cases the humor got out of hand and the message was lost in the mix. but the consequences of not having what GW had carry far more troubling implications than the minor pitfalls involved in actually asking people to take a look at themselves